Christmas cancelled as shutdown disrupts thousands of flights
GATWICK airport was turned into a makeshift emergency zone yesterday as more than 110,000 passengers were stranded on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Pregnant women, young families and the elderly found their Christmas holiday plans in tatters because of the 24-hour shutdown.
Tempers flared as frustrated passengers queued for hours, only to be told there was no hope of flights taking off.
Around 10,000 travellers were left to fend for themselves overnight on Wednesday. More passengers were last night bedding down in any space they could find at the airport’s South Terminal.
Many were running out of food and water but could not afford to leave or make alternative arrangements.
Others fled the airport in trains, coaches and taxis but faced having to spend much more booking new flights.
Some left items of luggage behind in the rush, sparking a series of security alerts.
Passengers said they were told they faced a three-day wait before they were likely to board flights.
Thousands more travellers faced hours stuck aboard aircraft on foreign runways after flights were diverted to Amsterdam and Paris.
Hollie Smith, from Chelmsford, Essex, was due to fly to Lapland with her five-year-old twin nieces Gracie and Sofia to meet Father Christmas.
She said: “Who will be the one to break the news to them? Sat in departures with no information. Twelve-plus hours to take down a drone is laughable. Don’t they have police drones to send up?”
Andri Kyprianou, from Cyprus, said she spent the night sleeping on the floor alongside a pregnant woman after arriving at 12.30am for a 3am flight that never arrived.
She said: “There were pregnant women, one of them was sleeping on the floor. There were people with small babies sleeping on the floor.”